polemic

French polémique ; from Classical Greek polemikos ; from polemos, war ; from Indo-European an unverified form pelem ; from base an unverified form pel-, to shake, cause to tremble from source Classical Latin palpitare, to tremble

Sentence Examples

With reference to the military side--the plan of campaign--that work of genius of which Thiers remarks that, "His genius never devised anything more profound, more skillful, or more admirable," and enters into a polemic with M. Fain to prove that this work of genius must be referred not to the fourth but to the fifteenth of October--that plan never was or could be executed, for it was quite out of touch with the facts of the case.

The jokes work as long as Franken sticks to the point of the book: delivering an entertaining polemic while rallying dispirited Democrats.

Around AD 522, he wrote a magnificent polemic about the ' collapse ' of the service.

The text, first published in Italy during 1985, clearly shows signs of its original purpose, a polemic directed against the PCI.

Up to this point the introduction seems set fair to become a polemic, but Arnheim then changes tack.

Words near polemic in the dictionary

Synonyms

Follow YourDictionary

Quote

Absolute Evil is not the kingdom of hell. The inhabitants of hell are ourselves, i.e., those who pay our painful, embarrassing, humanistic duties to society and who are compromised by our intellectually dubious commitment to virtue, which can be defined by the perpetual smear-word of French polemic: the bourgeois. (Bourgeois equals humanist.) This word has long been anathema in France where categories are part of the ruling notion of logique. The word cannot be readily matched in England or America. V. S Pritchett